Melinda Loveless
Melinda Loveless (born October 28, 1975) was one of four girls who were convicted of the 1992 murder of 12-year-old Shanda Sharer in Madison, Indiana. Loveless was the leader of the pack that included Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippey, and Toni Lawrence, and together they brutally tortured and burned Shanda alive. Loveless' motive was that Shanda had moved in on her then lesbian girlfriend Amanda Heavrin. She is currently serving 60 years in prison along with Laurie Tackett. Background Melinda Loveless was born in New Albany, Indiana on October 28, 1975. She is the youngest of three daughters to Marjorie and Larry Loveless. Larry was drafted into the U.S. Army during the events of the Vietnam War, and he was treated as a hero upon his return. Marjorie and Melinda would later describe Larry as a pervert. According to Marjorie he would wear her and her daughters' underwear and makeup, and was incapable of becoming monogamous. She also claimed that Larry had a mixture of jealousy and fascination with seeing her have sex with other men and women. They lived in and around New Albany during Melinda's upbringing. After his military service, Larry would work irregularly for the Southern Railroad. One of the perks of his new job was that he could work at his own convenience. In 1965, Larry became a probationary officer with the New Albany Police Department. He wouldn't keep this job forever. Eight months into the job, Larry and his partner assaulted an African-American man whom he accused of sleeping with his wife. In 1988, Larry very briefly worked as a mail carrier, but after three months, doing very little work he quit, and brought most of his mail home to destroy it. Since 1974, Marjorie had worked intermittently. When both Larry and Marjorie were working, the family became well financed, and began living in the upper-middle-class suburb of Floyds Knobs, Indiana. Larry almost never shared his income with his family, always spending what he earned on firearms, motorcycles, and cars. He filed for bankruptcy in 1980. Other family members often described the Loveless daughters as visiting their houses hungry, and obviously not well fed back at their home. Through most of their relationship, Larry was unfaithful to his wife, and they most often had an open marriage. When Larry would take Marjorie to bars in Louisville, he would pretend to be a doctor or dentist and often introduce her as his "girlfriend", he would also "share" her with other people at his work. Something she thought was disgusting. During an apparent orgy with another couple at their house, Marjorie tried to commit suicide, an act that she would repeat throughout her daughters' childhood. When Melinda was just nine years old, Larry had Marjorie gang raped, after which she tried to drown herself. After that incident, she refused to have sex with him for a month. He then violently rapes her while his daughters watch. During the summer of 1986, when Marjorie refused to let Larry go home with two women he met at a bar, he viciously beats her so severely that she was hospitalized. He was then convicted of battery. The extent of the abuse of his wife, daughters, and other children are vague. Several court testimonies claimed he fondled his daughter Michelle as an infant, molested Marjorie's 13-year-old sister early in the marriage, and molested his daughters' cousin Teddy from age 10 to 14. In court, Teddy testified that an incident had occurred where Larry tied up all three sisters in a garage, and raped them in succession. The Loveless daughters never confirmed this account. Larry had been verbally abusive to his daughters, and once fired a handgun in the direction of Michelle when she was seven, intentionally missing her. He would also find entertainment in finding his childrens' underwear and smelling them in front of other family members, embarrassing them. For two years, beginning when Melinda was five, the family was deeply involved in Christianity, and went to Graceland Baptist Church. Larry and Marjorie would later give full confession and renounced drinking and swinging while they were members. Larry started working at the church as a Baptist lay preacher, and Marjorie became the churches school nurse. The church later arranged for Melinda to be taken to a motel room with a 50-year-old man for a five-hour exorcism. Larry became a marriage counselor within the church and acquired a reputation for being too forward with women, eventually even attempting to rape one of them. After this incident, the Loveless parents left the church and began returning back to their original professions, drinking and an open marriage. In November of 1990, Larry was caught spying on Melinda and a friend, and Marjorie attacked him with a knife, sending him to the hospital after apparently attempting to grab it. She then attempted suicide again, her daughters calling the authorities. After this incident Larry filed for a divorce and moved to Avon Park, Florida. Melinda felt deeply crushed after especially learning that Larry remarried. He sends Melinda letters for a while, playing on her emotions, before severing contact with Melinda fully. Affiliation with Amanda Heavrin In 1990, Loveless, just 14, began dating another young girl named Amanda Heavrin. After Melinda's father Larry moved to Florida and her mother remarried, she began behaving erratically. She would often get into fights at school and she felt depressed. She started to receive professional counselling. In March of 1991, Melinda finally explained her lesbian relationship to her mother Marjorie, who at first was furious but then learned to accept it. As the year progressed, Loveless' relationship with Heavrin deteriorated. Heavrin and Shanda Sharer had met early on during the Fall semester when the girls got into a fight. Both girls received detention for the altercation and became friends. Melinda immediately grew jealous of the relationship between them. In early October, at a school dance, Melinda confronted both girls and demanded that Sharer never see Amanda again. She then smacked her around and chased her away from the school. Heavrin and Loveless never fully ended their relationship, even so, Melinda began dating an older girl. Shanda and Amanda began a sexual relationship unbeknownst to Shanda's parents Jacqui and Steve. It was only after Melinda caught Heavrin and Sharer together at a local festival in late October did she start talking about harming Sharer. She then threatened Shanda in public. Shanda's parents had overwhelming concerns for her relationship with Heavrin and they decided moving Shanda to a Catholic christian school in late November. Shanda and Amanda eventually began drifting apart by December. Girls Involved with Murder * Melinda Loveless '- Loveless was the master-mind behind Shanda Sharer's abduction, and murder. Fueled by jealousy, Loveless beat, stabbed, and sodomized Shanda. Loveless and Laurie Tackett caused the most damage to Shanda together. Loveless also engineered the plan of burning Shanda's body. It was Loveless who lit the unconscious Shanda on fire a second time. * '''Laurie Tackett '- Tackett was likely the second in command that night. It's been speculated that she drove her car to The Witch's Castle, and then drove to Lemon Road. She participated in stabbing and beating Sharer along with Loveless. * 'Hope Rippey '- Rippey participated in pouring the gasoline on Shanda's body, as well as driving Tackett's car to Jeffersonville from New Albany. She also taunted Shanda with words, and sprayed Windex at her while she was battered and bloody in the trunk. * '''Toni Lawrence - Lawrence was the least involved. The only thing she's guilty of is not preventing the crime. She also helped Hope Rippey attempt lore Shanda into the car. January 10-11 1992 On the night of January 10, 1992, Hope Rippey (age 15), Toni Lawrence (age 15), and Laurie Tackett (age 17) drove in Tackett's vehicle from Madison to Melinda Loveless' (age 16) house in New Albany. Lawrence, who was a friend of Tackett's, had not previously met Melinda. But Hope Rippey briefly met her before, and they seemed to get along. Upon arrival, the three girls borrow clothes from Melinda, and then she shows them a knife. Melinda claimed that she brought it to scare Shanda. Shanda had not met Laurie, Hope, or Toni, but she knew Melinda very well. Tackett knew of Melinda's intent to scare the 12-year-old girl. Loveless explained to both Hope and Toni that she disliked Shanda for being a copycat and for "stealing her girlfriend". Tackett lets Rippey drive there pack to Jeffersonville, Indiana, where Shanda Sharer lived. Along the way, they stop at a near by McDonald's to ask for directions. They eventually arrive at Shanda's house before dark. Loveless instructed Hope and Toni to go to the door and introduce themselves and friends of Amanda Heavrin's (Loveless' ex and Sharer's current girlfriend). They were told that they should invite Sharer to go with them to see Heavrin, who was waiting for them at "The Witch's Castle", an abandoned stone house, also known as Mistletoe Falls, located on a steep, isolated hill overlooking the Ohio River. Sharer said that she couldn't go due to the fact that her parents were still awake, and told them to come back around midnight. Loveless was annoyed at first, but Hope and Toni assure her that they could come back for Sharer later. The four girls crossed the river to Louisville, Kentucky, where they attend a punk rock concert at the Audubon Skate Park near Interstate 65. Not long into the concert, Rippey and Lawrence lose interest in the music, and engage in sexual activities with two boys in the parking lot in Tackett's car. Eventually, the girls leave to Sharer's house. During the ride, Loveless started saying that she couldn't wait to kill Sharer, but also shared attractiveness towards her, even going as far as saying that she would like to have sex with Shanda, and that the knife was just meant to frighten her. They arrive at Shanda's house around 12:30 AM. This time, Lawrence refuses to go to the door, and Tackett and Rippey do so this time. Loveless hid under a blanket in the back seat with the knife. Sharer was expecting the girls, but was rather hesitant to go, deciding to change clothes first. Upon walking and entering the car, Rippey began to question Shanda about her relationship Heavrin just to set Melinda off. Heaving heard enough, Melinda sprang out from the back seat and put the knife to Sharer's throat, and started interrogating her about her sexual relationship with Amanda. Tackett drives them towards Utica, Indiana, and the Witch's Castle. Tackett informed the girls that legend says the house was once owned by nine witches, and that townspeople burned the house to get rid of the witches. When they arrived, they took the sobbing Shanda in and bounded her arms and legs with rope. While there, Loveless began taunting Shanda about how pretty her hair was, and wondered how pretty she would look if they were to cut it off, this only scared Shanda more, however. Loveless began removing Sharer's jewelry and handing it to each of the girls. At some point, Rippey took Shanda's Mickey Mouse watch and danced foolishly to the tune it played, likely to mock her. Tackett, getting bored of the childish games, started describing the dungeon's history to Shanda, She said that it was filled with human remains and bones, and threatened that she would be next. Tackett goes back to the car, Lawrence followed, and retrieved Sharer's cherished smiley face sweater. She returns, and lights it on fire. But fearing the small blaze could attract attention, they decide to leave. During the car ride, Shanda began begging for them to take her back home. Tackett turned on a boom box, sat it on her lap, and began playing opera, mimicking Sharer, acting like she was crying, and laughed something she called her "devil laugh". Loveless ordered Shanda to slip off her bra, which she then handed to Rippey who took off the one she was wearing and put Shanda's on while steering the car. Upon driving randomly, they get lost and ask for directions at a gas station, at which point they cover Sharer with a blanket. While Tackett went in to ask for directions from the clerk, Lawrence called a boy she knew in Louisville and chatted with him for several minutes, hoping to ease her worries and guilt, but did not mention Shanda's abduction to anyone. They return to the car, but find themselves lost again before asking for directions at another gas station. Upon arrival there, Lawrence and Rippey spotted a couple of boys, and talked to them briefly, before once again leaving. They find themselves at the edge of some woods near Tackett's home in Madison, Indiana. Tackett led them to an abandoned garbage dump off a logging road in a dense part of the woods. Rippey and Lawrence, frightened, stay in the car while Loveless and Tackett made Sharer strip naked, afterwards, Loveless begins brutally punching Shanda with her fists. She then repeatedly slams Shanda's face into her knee, which cuts her mouth from her own braces. Loveless desperately attempts to slit Shanda's throat, but was never able to because of the dullness of the blade she had. Hope then comes out of the car to hold Shanda down while Loveless and Tackett take turns stabbing her in the chest. They then strangle her with a rope until she is unconscious. They then place her in the trunk, and tell the other two girls that she was dead. The girls then head over to Tackett's house where they drink soda and clean themselves up. When Tackett hears her dog barking outside, she realizes that Sharer isn't dead, and goes outside and begins stabbing her with a paring knife several times. When she comes back minutes later, she is covered in blood. After she washed herself up, Tackett playfully told the girls' futures with runestones. At around 2:30 AM, Toni and Hope stay behind at Tackett's house while both Loveless and Tackett went "country cruising", driving to the nearby town of Canaan. Shanda continued to cry and make gurgling noises in the trunk, so Tackett eventually stopped the car. When Loveless and Tackett opened up the trunk, Shanda sat up covered in blood with her eyes rolled to the back of her head, but unable to speak. Laurie then beats her with a tire iron until she is silent. The girls arrive back at Tackett's house just before daybreak, and clean themselves up once more. When Rippey asks about Sharer, Tackett playfully describes the torture they caused her. The conversation eventually wakes Laurie's mom, who yells at her daughter for staying out late and bringing home the girls. Tackett then agrees to take them all home. They drive to the burn pile, where they open up the trunk and stare blankly at Sharer. Lawrence again refused to participate. Rippey then sprayed Shanda with Windex and taunted, "You're not looking so hot now, are you? Now let's take her pants off and get to it ladies!" Loveless and Tackett presumably sodomize Sharer. The girls then drive to a gas station near Madison Consolidated High School, and fill the car with gas. They purchase a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. The girls take the opportunity to pour the soda out and fill the bottle with gasoline while filling up the car. They then drive north of Madison, directly past Jefferson Proving Ground to Lemon Road off U.S. Route 421, a place well known to Rippey. Lawrence decided to stay in the vehicle while Tackett and Rippey wrapped Sharer who was still clinging to life, in a blanket. They then carry her to a field near the gravel country road. Tackett forced Rippey to pour the two-liter bottle of gasoline on Sharer, they then light her on fire. Upon leaving, Loveless was having doubts that Shanda was dead. They then stop the car, Loveless gets out and pours the rest of the gasoline on Sharer. They then go out for breakfast at McDonald's at 9:30 AM. There, the girls joke that Sharer looked like the sausages they were eating. Lawrence was to overwhelmed with guilt and fear, and eventually called a friend and told her about the murder. Tackett drops Lawrence and Rippey off at their homes, before returning to her own home with Loveless. Melinda called Heavrin and told her that she had killed Shnada, and that they were going to pick her up later that day. Loveless' friend, Crystal Wathen, came over to her house. Both Tackett and Loveless explained to her what happened. The girls then drove to Heavrin's house to pick her up, and then returned to Loveless' home. They then tell her the whole story of the murder. Heavrin didn't believe it at first, but still chose to comfort the hysterical Melinda. Both Heavrin and Wathen immediately became convinced when Laurie showed them the trunk of her car with Sharer's bloody handprints and socks still in there. Heavrin became horrified, and demanded that she be taken home. When they arrived at her house, Loveless kissed Heavrin before she went inside, and pleaded that she not tell anyone. Amanda promised that she wouldn't, before going inside. Investigation Later on the morning of January 11, 1992, two brothers from Canaan, Indiana, were driving towards Jefferson Proving Ground to go hunting, when they saw a body on the side of the road. The police were called at 10:55 AM, and were asked to investigate the corpse. David Camm, an officer who was later acquitted on the own murder of his family, was one of the responding officers. Jefferson County Sheriff Buck Shippley and detectives would begin the investigation. They'd collect forensic evidence at the scene. They originally thought it was a drug deal gone wrong and found it hard to believe something so terrible could be done by locals. Sharer's father Steven noticed his daughter missing early on January 11. He called his ex-wife Jacqueline at 1:45 PM, and together they filed a missing person's report with the Clark County sheriff. At approximately 8:20 PM, a hysterical Toni Lawrence went to the Jefferson County Sheriff's office with her parents. She gave an overwhelming rambling statement, identifying the victim as "Shanda", and trying her best to name the other three girls involved. She also told police what happened the previous night. Officer Rippley contacted the Clark County sheriff and was successfully able to match the body to Shanda Sharer's missing person's report. The body was so badly burned, that they had to use dental records to identify it, and sure enough, the body belonged to 12-year-old Shanda Sharer. Loveless and Tackett were arrested on January 12. The bulk of the evidence for the arrest warrant was Toni's statement. The prosecution immediately decided to try both suspects as adults. For several months, the prosecutors and defense didn't release any information about the case, the news would only release what Toni Lawrence said to police. Trial and Conviction All four girls were charged as adults. They avoided the death penalty by accepting plea bargains. The four girls had profoundly troubled and uneasy backgrounds. Laurie, Hope, and Toni had a history of engaging in self-harm behavior. Tackett was diagnosed prior to the murder with borderline personality disorder and suffered from hallucinations. Melinda Loveless, the ringleader, had the most extent of abuse and mental health problems. Loveless and Tackett were sentenced to 60 years in the Indiana Women's Prison located in Indianapolis. Along with maximum time reduced for good behavior, both girls could possibly be released in the year 2020. Rippey was sentenced to 60 years, but she had ten years suspended for mitigating circumstances. She was also given ten years of medium-supervision probation. Lawrence was sentenced to twenty years, but only served nine, and she was released on December 14, 2000. Though released, she remained on parole until December, 2002. On April 28, 2006, Hope Rippey was released from Indiana Women's Prison on parole after serving just 14 years of her original sentence. She would remain on supervised parole for 5 more years. Loveless and Tackett are currently serving their time in prison. Trivia * Melinda Loveless is portrayed by Krystle Sansom in the episode "Thrill Killers". Sansom also portrayed Tiffany Cole in the episode "Loathe Thy Neighbors", victim Rachael Koloroutis in the episode "Love Gone Wrong", and a minor character in the episode "Killer Kids". * Shanda Sharer's murder story has been on the show ''Dr. Phil, ''the episode was entitled ''"In Cold Blood: A Daughter's Brutal Murder", ''and on YouTube there is a four part video of the episode. * Shanda's father Steve drank himself to death months after his daughter's brutal murder. * Melinda Loveless is the first killer the show focuses on in the episode "Thrill Killers", the second being Brenda Spencer and the third being Tracey Wiggington. * Sharer's mother Jacqui donated a dog in Shanda's name to Melinda for her to groom. Media Category:Lesbians Category:More than 1 killer